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“S-should I call the police?” I asked Amber, and she bit her bottom lip nervously.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m scared he has connections there. I’m scared we’ll be brought back.”
“I don’t even know where we are,” I said, trying to keep my shit together. “I don’t even know what number to call.”
“The studio,” Amber suddenly said. “You can call the studio. Do you remember the number?”
“Y-yes,” I whispered.
I only realized then how alone I was in the world. Yes, I had my father, but he stopped giving a shit about me a long time ago. Amber had never been close with her family, either.
“Put in the country code,” Amber urged me. “And call. Come on. It’s evening time there, right? Surely someone’s there.”
I typed in the number, and we held hands, feeling utterly lost as the phone rang and rang.
I almost gave up when I finally heard crackling static and a voice I’d almost forgotten came on the line.
“Oh my God,” I cried out on the verge of tears.
“Harlow?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes,” I replied. “Amber is with me, too. Please help us. Please. Please, you need to help us.”
There was a pause and more crackling of static. Then I heard the words I’d been praying to hear.
“I will help,” she said. “What do you need? Where are you? What’s going on?”
All I could do was cry.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you, Carina…”
Chapter 14
Thorn
The incessant knocking on the door could have woken the fucking dead.
I hated sleeping alone now that I had her. I hated the feeling of the empty bed, the space where she should have been, feeling empty next to me. We’d had an argument, and she asked me to leave. This time, I’d decided to respect her wishes. After all, what she found out came as quite a shock to my little Rose.
“Calm the fuck down,” I called out, getting out of bed with a groan. “I’ll be right there.”
I slipped on a terrycloth robe over my naked body and walked over to the door. I opened it wide to reveal Pia on my doorstep and fought the urge to roll my eyes, but I changed my mind the second I saw the look on her face. She looked scared, and I never knew her to feel that emotion.
“What’s wrong?” I barked, and she blanched at the sound of my voice.
“It’s Harlow,” she whispered, and right away, my mind pictured the worst.
Something had happened to her. She’d gotten hurt.
“Where?” I growled, pushing passed her into the hallway and feeling like a wild fucking beast. “Where the fuck is she? Is she okay?”
“We d-don’t know,” Pia stuttered nervously. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?” I turned towards her. “What the fuck do you mean ‘gone?’”
My mind pounded with the possibilities. Someone had taken her away from me. Someone who knew how much she fucking meant to me. Stolen from the man who had kidnapped her. How ironic.
“W-we think she ran,” Pia whispered. “Amber’s gone, too.”
It only took two sentences to break my damn heart. She ran. She ran like I knew she would, but I’d thought I’d delayed the inevitable, that I’d convinced her to stay with me at least for a little while.
“How?” I demanded, and Pia shook her head uselessly.
“We don’t know,” she admitted. “Someone saw a knocked out guard in front of her bedroom. They called me. We checked both rooms, and they’re both gone. I’ve sent men to search the grounds.”
“How many?” I asked, and she risked a look at my eyes then turned away the second she saw my thunderous expression.
“Seven,” she said. “Seven on the grounds. Two driving out.”
“Not enough,” I barked. “Send everyone out.”
“But what about…” she started, and I glared at her which shut her up faster than my hands could. “I’ll get on it. Are you going out to look for her too?”
“Of course,” I growled. “And you’re coming with me.”
It was impossible to miss the glint in her eyes, the neediness to help and be around me. I fucking hated it, but she was useful. She’d be intent on finding my girl if for no other reason to watch me punish her, and God fucking damn it, what a punishment it would be.
“Wait while I get dressed,” I told Pia, and she nodded while I disappeared back into my room. The second the door shut behind me, I felt the weight of what she’d told me on my shoulders.
I’d fucking messed this up royally.
The only girl that mattered, the one that actually managed to ignite my heart like no other… I’d let her slip through my fingers. I’d never been angrier with myself.
I knew she would run eventually. Not because of our arguments, or because of her love of dancing, but because she was fiercely independent despite her submissiveness and her youth. I thought taking her from her home early on would prevent this, but I was obviously wrong. She’d taken the first chance she saw to get the fuck away from me, and I wanted to hate her for it. How could she not sense the madness between us? The connection that now felt severed and so fucking painful each breath felt like an ordeal.
